One Thousand and One Nights

One Thousand and One Nights (Arabic: كِتَاب أَلْف لَيْلَة وَلَيْلَة‎‎ kitāb ʾalf layla wa-layla) is a compilation of Middle Eastern and South Asian stories, written down in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age.

Its collection took place over many centuries and countries, and many of the tales can be traced back to folk stories in the Caliphate era and others from the Persian "A Thousand Tales." Some of the tales, including "Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp," "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves", and "The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor" were added by European translators. The first English edition in 1706 titled it The Arabian Nights' Entertainment, causing it to also be frequently known as the Arabian Nights.

Despite the many differences between editions, one element they have in common is the frame story of King Shahryar and his wife, the storyteller Scheherazade. Some tales are themselves frame stories.

Several of the stories, including the frame story, have Persian origins. Early mentions of the Nights call it an Arabic translation of a Persian book, Hazār Afsān, "The Thousand Stories," which involves a king killing all of his wives after their wedding night until one starts telling stories to delay her execution. However, there is no surviving evidence of this book, so any further information has been lost.